Steve Lee (李承根)’s Post

After Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Dubai, the Neoclassic team will be in Bangkok this week. Steve Lee, our co-founder and managing partner, will be in Thailand this week to speak at Southeast Asia Blockchain Week and participate in Money20/20, the largest global fintech event. At SEABW, Steve will lead the panel "Unfolding the Web3 Narratives & Market Opportunities in 2024".

Michael Bucella, co-founder and managing partner, will be in Dubai this week to speak alongside Anthony Scaramucci on "Where Do RWAs Fit into Crypto Investing?" at the invite-only RWA Summit Series in Dubai. SkyBridge Capital x Neoclassic Capital

Steve Lee (李承根), co-founder and managing partner, will be in Tokyo to attend the Web3/AI summit hosted by 株式会社TEAMZ (TEAMZ Inc.) and discuss "Navigating the Web3 Venture Landscape."

Our team has been traveling in Asia for 4 weeks to speak at conferences and to strengthen relationships in the regions. ・ Seoul: ETH Seoul, Buidl Asia (Mar 27-31) ・ Hong Kong: Web3 Festival (Apr 4-9) ・ Tokyo: Web3/AI summit (13-14) ・ Dubai: Token2049 (18-19) ・ Bangkok: SEABW2024 (22-28)

Would like to share that I have transferred to a new role, Global Product Lead in Revenue & Strategy Operations team at Google, based in the Bay Area. Will be working on building internal tools, a CRM for Google sales team, helping and empowering sellers & business teams. As I plan for the future, building some milestones I want to achieve in the next few years, I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who has supported me along the way. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much I have been surrounded by amazing people who selflessly shared their wisdom to me-countless 1:1s, warm and caring advises, genuine and thoughtful insights that helped me to grow as a better “person”. The small moments I had with those helped me to have the courage to face my mistakes that often became stepping stones for more achivements, and to discover the strengths that I would not have known just through my own eyes. Most importantly, such sincere, meaningful interactions have helped me to think more about intrinsic & bigger questions like “what is the right thing to do?”and “how can I contribute to those around us?”. Moving forward, although my cabilities are often limited, hope I can resemble at least few amazing traits of those around me and pay back to those who may be in a similar situation as I had been. 많이 부족함에도 항상 격려해주시고 저의 작은 성취들에 같이 기뻐해주셔서 감사했습니다 :)

Do VCs need to explain why they passed on a deal? No, they don’t - and I’m saying this as a founder. VC is a “default no” game. They’re not in charity. They pass on most deals by default and only invest in small # of companies they can be excited for the next 10 years, for whatever subjective reasons. If it’s a default yes game, sure, the expectation might be that VCs explain why they had to pass on such a great company, for each individual case. But it’s not a default yes game. Founders often send a follow up email to ask why a VC passed on them. Great effort to get as much feedback as possible and use every interaction as a learning opportunity. But if it goes beyond this and becomes some sort of a demand, the founder is getting into the entitlement territory, IMO. The other caveat is, when pushed, VCs might give false answers. They might have passed on you because they think you’re a weak founder, or because they didn’t like the fact that the founding team was all East Asians - but most VCs wouldn’t say that out loud. So if a VC passed on you, don’t get hung up on the why too much. It might be whatever reason for each VC, but that’s not the point. The goal is not to fit their standard, the goal is to build irrefutable success and become the one company the next VC has been desperately looking for.